Breaking China - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

As readers may recall, I've been scoffing for years at theories of China as the 21st-century hyperpower. It has two huge structural defects — a) an aging population; and b) an ever more male population. This last is entirely owed to the Commies' disastrous one-child policy which ensured the abortion of millions and millions of girl babies: A woman's right to choose turns out in practice to be the right not to choose any women. Result: Millions and millions of young men who'll never get a date. Not a recipe for social stability.
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In his schoolgirl paeans to totalitarianism, has the China-smitten Thomas Friedman of the New York Times ever addressed these structural defects? Or any of the ecopalyptic warm-mongers expressing barely concealed admiration for Beijing's population-control measures?

Bill Gates Calls for New Innovative Ideas to Help the World - Philanthropy.com

At the end of his letter, Mr. Gates briefly responds to why his foundation does not give to efforts to fight climate change, something several environmentalists have chided him for.

Investors.com - White House Needs New Look At Energy

What the world is witnessing is the largest peaceful transfer of power in history. Energy means power, and while the U.S. is consumed by environmental ideologies and climate rhetoric, it is committing economic hara-kiri in the process. China, riding on energy acquisitions with little competition, will propel itself into the economic stratosphere.

The U.S. should be concerned, but doing something about it will require an unlikely sea of cultural change in the Obama administration.

[Does this guy in the UK really power all this stuff with solar panels?]: the house that costs £60 a year to heat - Telegraph

...he built his £400,000 home with very well insulated walls...The result of this caring about consumption is that Mike now claims annual utility costs (heat, electricity and water), even in this cold winter, of less than £100 a year.

''What I wanted was to find solutions that could be adopted by mass-market builders and the general population,’’ he says. ''I wanted to build a house that demonstrated that low-energy living doesn’t have to compromise the way we live.’’ Tranquility is living proof of that theory. There are, for example, several computers (and one in a broom cupboard on the first floor that is the nerve centre of the house, monitoring and tracking the energy used).

There are televisions in the bedrooms, ensuite hot tubs, a sauna, a state-of the-art cooker and, naturally, beautiful wooden floors in every room.